Microsoft Reduces Azure VM Prices By Up To 50%

Microsoft has reduced the prices of most popular Azure virtual machines (VM).

The prices of DV2 VM will be reduced by up to 15%

Prices of A1 and A2 Basic VM will be reduced by up to 50%

Prices of the compute-optimized F-Series VM will drop by up to 11%

Av2-Series VMs that Microsoft will introduce next month will cost up to 36% less than the A-Series Standard VMs.

The price reduction is effective as of October 1. In addition, customers using Windows Server with Software Assurance can even make use of Microsoft Azure Hybrid Use Benefit to run Windows Server workloads at 41% lesser cost.

Google’s Cloud Machine Learning Service Reaches Public Beta

Google has unveiled machine learning-specific additions to its cloud platform. It opened up the Cloud Machine Learning in beta to enrich its cloud service offerings and provide expanded toolsets for enterprises to build their own machine-learning powered products.

Google Cloud Machine Learning is a platform to develop and train machine learning models with TensorFlow framework and data stored in BigQuery and Cloud Storage backend. Another feature announced by Google is HyperTune that removes a source of drudgery usually associated with developing machine learning models.

The company also offers a revamped version of its office applications called G Suite. It is dressed up with machine learning-powered features to help workers collaborate in the cloud.

Drupal Patches Three Security Flaws In Core Engine

Drupal has released a security update that patches three vulnerabilities in its core engine, two of which were rated critical. The first critical security bug was a cross-site scripting flaw affecting HTTP exceptions. Attackers could exploit the security flaw to create specifically crafted URLs that can execute arbitrary code on a victim’s browser when loaded.

The second critical bug enabled downloading the system’s configuration report without permission. The third one was the least dangerous of all and affected the comment administration on a Drupal site. “Users who have rights to edit a node, can set the visibility on comments for that node,” said Drupal. “This should be restricted to those who have the administer comments permission.”